The Heist: Chapter 5 - Johnny Tan's Offer
by jcoates
Summary: Nick and Baggo are introduced to London's most infamous and arrogant gangster, Mr Johnny Tan. Tan has a proposition for the boys. A proposition they can't refuse.


**Johnny Tan's Offer**

''ello, boys,' said the man behind the desk.

Nick knew instantly that this was Johnny Tan. He also recognised that this was not a man that you fucked around with lightly.

_Talk about first impressions_, Nick thought to himself, _this old bloke is as dangerous as they come, and he knows it too_.

Sitting there in his winged armchair of green velvet behind his large and ornate mahogany desk, Johnny Tan looked like a king on his throne. And to all intents and purposes he may well have been. Anyone involved in any major criminal enterprise that took place in central London, whether it be drug-dealing, prostitution, robbery, extortion, blackmail, bootlegging or murder, could expect to come under the scrutiny of Johnny Tan. For the most part he let everyone get on with their own thing. As long as you did not endanger any of Mr. Tan's own "business ventures", as he referred to them, then generally you were left to look after yourself. However, every now and again, the king on his throne would hear a whisper. Hearing this whisper, the king would send out a couple of likely lads to gather a bit of information, and see if this whisper could make him a bit of money. Now, if you played ball with Johnny, then you could expect him to protect you. You might even find that the police would be called off somewhere else that night or day. He would give you a place to lie low, and make arrangements of the kind that you might find hard to make yourself. Arrangements such as having a body vanish, an official or police officer bribed, or stolen property magically exchanged for cash. Johnny Tan would see to all this for you and in return would take – a very reasonable and apparently justified, he would tell you – seventy percent of the take for the job that you had orchestrated and pulled. What's more you would end up owing _him_ a favour for all his hard work. And once you owed Johnny Tan a favour, the chances that you would be able to pay it back were about as likely as a three-legged donkey winning the Grand National.

The man in front of Nick had a finger in every pie. He owned and operated a dozen or so high-class brothels, places where government officials, celebrities and travelling dignitaries were assured they could indulge in all their kinkiest fantasies in absolute secrecy, away from the prying eyes of the media, public and, most importantly, their wives.

Of course, Johnny Tan had every dirty little encounter recorded on high-quality digital video and stored away for future use. Whether to use it to convince an athlete to throw a game - otherwise a tape showing him snorting cocaine out of a hooker's arse-crack would be on that nights six o'clock news, or sway the decision of a housing minister to give a lucrative contract to Tan's building company - to save him from the shame of seeing himself all over the Sunday papers, handcuffed to a bed, wearing only a sailor's hat and a smile.

Blackmail and bribery were key tools in the Johnny Tan business plan, and his pockets were as deep as his arm was long. He was the kind of man that wore the same smile when he signed a building contract, as he did when he ordered someone have their heart cut out. He was an evil, ruthless, calculating individual, whose definition of business satisfaction was make as much money as you can, and kill those who piss you off as you do it.

With all this in mind, Nick just hoped that Baggo had the common sense to identify a man who would gladly cut your ears off and feed them to you, if he got the impression that you weren't listening to him.

'Johnny Tan?' Nick asked.

The man sitting behind the desk bowed his head in assent.

'What can we do for you, Mr Tan?' Nick asked, unbuttoning his jacket and taking a seat in one of the two proffered chairs in front of the desk.

Johnny Tan was not Asian, as many of London's lowliest criminals who had never met him thought. He had been raised in Dorset, the son of a fisherman, and still had the faint traces of an accent to prove it. He took a couple of minutes in answering, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling his sleeves up his meaty forearms.

Nick knew that he was sweating them, letting them stew whilst their imaginations ran wild. He knew that Mr Tan would be savouring their discomfort. He could almost hear the man swishing their unease around in his mouth like a particularly fruity and delectable mouthful of port.

Eventually the man across the desk finished adjusting his cuffs. He lounged back in his chair, resting his hands upon his impressive belly, resplendent in a waistcoat of fine silk, and propped his feet up on his desk.

'Right, boys,' he said, 'I take it that you're well aware of who _I _am and what _I_ do. So, I'll skip the introduction, and the normal self-flattery in which I normally indulge when describing my background to a couple of scrotes like yourselves, and get down to brass tacks.' He pulled out a pretentiously large cigar from a box on his desk along with a cigar-cutter.

Nick and Baggo sat and waited for the question that would tell them exactly what this lord of vice wanted from them.

'So, lads,' Johnny Tan continued, 'tell me, who the fuck _you _are,' he paused to snip the end off his cigar, 'and what it is that you're planning on doing that has caught the attention of a dangerous old bastard like myself.'

Nick paused while Mr Tan lowered his head to the flame of a lighter held by one of his flunkies that had come forward. The old man puffed vigorously until the end of the cigar was a glowing red tip.

Nick cleared his throat. 'With all due respect –'

But Baggo cut across him. 'Sorry mate, why the fuck don't we stop with all this dossing about, aye? How the shite are we supposed to know why you bought us here? _You _don't seem to have a clue why we're sitting here, so how in the name of Jesus's left bollock are we supposed to?'

Nick closed his eyes. _You dozy fucking idiot, Baggo_, he thought.

A cloud seemed to pass over the plump face of Johnny Tan. He disgorged a puff of smoke in Baggo's direction, stroked his almost completely grey moustache with a chubby forefinger and then pointed it at Baggo's face. The digit may well have been a gun barrel; such was Nick's fear for his friend. His stupid, _stupid_ friend.

There was no one more reliable or decisive when executing a job or plan than Baggo. Give the man a set of instructions to carry out and he would perform them generally flawlessly, crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i'. It was when you left him to his own devices that he was at his most dangerous.

When Johnny Tan spoke however, it was in a voice of deadly calm. It reminded Nick of that first gust of wind, that initial cold breeze, which precedes a storm that will blow your house down like a stack of cards. A storm that will _fuck you up_.

'Now, you listen to me, sweetheart,' Johnny said, his eyes locked on Baggo's, 'you're new to me and to this game, so I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that little outburst. That being said though there are three points I'd like to raise with ya. Firstly, if you _ever_ speak out of fucking turn again, I will instruct Alastair here,' he motioned to the man who had held the lighter for him a moment before, 'to take one of my finest silver spoons and fucking scoop out your left peeper,' he pointed at Baggo's left eye, 'fucking scoop it right out, like a – like a –' he half turned his head to the man behind him.

'Like a grapefruit, Mr. Tan?' supplied Alastair.

'Yes - thank you, Alastair – like a fucking grapefruit,' he continued at Baggo. 'Then, I'm going to use your eye socket as a bleedin' ashtray.' Johnny Tan took a deep breath and tapped out some ash onto his desk, as if to illustrate his point.

'Secondly,' he said, leaning forward across his desk, 'do I look Australian to you?'

'Sorry?' Baggo spluttered.

'Do I look fucking Australian to you, boy?'

Baggo seemed to have been stunned into silence by this seemingly random question. 'I don't know what –' he started to say.

'Do I look _Australian_ to you?' Tan continued relentlessly. 'Do you see me wearing one of those ri-fucking-_diculous_ cork hats? Do I look like the sort of gent to go out wrestling crocodiles? Would you presume that a fucking dingo had eaten my fucking baby, boy?'

Baggo raised his eyebrows and said tentatively, 'No…'

'No… So if I don't look Australian, why the bloody hell would you call me _mate_, you cheeky little shit?'

Baggo opened his mouth to reply, but Tan didn't give him a chance, holding up a pudgy hand to cut him off. 'You refer to me as Mr Tan, understand? One day I might let you call me Johnny, when I'm in particularly sunny mood, but to be honest I'll probably have you killed long before then, now that I've seen what a moronic fucking specimen you are.'

Then – and Nick couldn't believe that he did it – Baggo said, 'And thirdly?'

Tan actually smiled at this. He sucked thoughtfully on his cigar, the reflected light of the ember burning ominously in his sea-grey eyes.

'Thirdly,' Tan said quietly, 'I want to warn you boys that Alastair here,' he pointed with his thumb at the silent figure standing behind his chair, 'is an angry bastard. Nothin' pisses him off more than seeing me with me knickers in a twist, because,' he took in another mouthful of cigar and exhaled, letting the thick smoke coil furtively from between his lips like an obscene grey sidewinder out of its den, 'if I've got a niggle then he has a niggle. And you fuckin' _hate_ niggles, don't you, Alastair?'

'Abso-fuckin'-lutely, boss,' came the gravelly reply from behind Johnny Tan's chair.

'Do you two fellas understand what I'm tellin' you? You don't mess Johnny Tan about, not unless you want to wind up in a ditch somewhere with your guts in a pile next to you.'

Nick had watched Tan while he had ranted, sizing the man up, deciding how he could deal with him if he had to. He had observed him closely as he had thrown his little fit over Baggo's bit of cheek. Johnny Tan, Nick decided, was obviously a man with a lot of clout, someone who had the right connections and more than enough cash to ensure the trust of the blokes who were in his employ. He was a fundamentally a businessman – undoubtedly a successful one judging by his tailored clothes and flashy office – and like a majority of businessmen he had a big wallet, big ego and - Nick was willing to bet – a tiny set of balls.

Nick had met men like Johnny Tan before in his line of work. Some had been just as arrogant and loudmouthed, others had been softer spoken and far more polite. In Nick's experience, it had been the quieter ones that you could normally bank on slitting your throat in the middle of the night, or smiling at you as they put a blowtorch through your ankle joint (something Nick had witnessed and was not keen to ever have done to him).

Johnny Tan walked over to a cabinet set against a wall and pulled out a crystal decanter.

'Drink, lads?' he asked in a genial fashion. He shook the decanter invitingly.

_So that's your little game is it, you cheeky old beggar?_ Nick thought, _Intimidation followed by a bit of pampering and perhaps – wait, let me guess – some careful flattery?_ Nick smiled to himself. _Fine, I'll play old man. In for a penny, in for fifty million pounds._

'Yeah, a drink would be great, Mr Tan,' Nick replied.

'That a boy, son, shake the cobwebs, eh,' he poured Nick a generous measure and then turned to Baggo. 'What about you, boy?' he asked.

'Not for him, Mr Tan, thank you. You're driving aren't you, _boy_?' Nick stressed the last word. Baggo gave him a stony look.

Tan handed Nick his drink and then seated himself once again at his desk.

'Alastair?' Tan said over his shoulder.

'Yes, boss?'

'Why don't you go outside for a smoke or something for ten minutes,' he suggested, 'leave me alone with our two new associates.'

Perhaps it was meant to be reassuring, a gesture of good faith and confidence and trust. Nick trusted Johnny Tan about as far as he could throw him, and taking into account the girth of the porky cunt, he'd be lucky to get him out of his chair.

Alastair left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

'Now, fellas,' said Tan addressing them with a wave of his cigar, 'I think it's about time you two told me your names, don't you reckon?'

Nick had just about had enough of this phony old toad for one day, and he could not summon the patience to beat around the bush all day.

'Nick,' he said, extending a hand to Tan, 'and this my associate, Tom Baggery. Although, I'm sure that you knew that already.'

'Call me, Baggo, Mr Tan,' said Baggo, shaking Johnny Tan's hand in turn.

'Nick and Baggo, eh,' mused Tan, squinting at them through another cloud of smoke. 'Well, it's a pleasure, boys.' He leaned back in his chair, appraising them as he might a new rug for his office. 'And you're right, of course I knew who you were before you walked in here today.'

'With all due respect, Mr Tan,' Nick said, crossing his legs, 'could you spill the beans on just why it is you have us sitting here in this beautiful office of yours? I'm of the mind that you didn't bring two complete strangers in to offer them a drink and try and scare the shit out of them.' He drained his glass of whiskey in one and cocked his head at Tan.

Johnny Tan chuckled. 'Yeah, that's a fair cop, Nick,' he tapped his cigar on the edge of a brass ashtray, leaving a thick wodge of ash behind that reminded Nick randomly of a cat turd.

'I 'ear a lot from this chair, lads,' Tan continued. 'I've got a bunch of good lads out on those streets,' he nodded towards the large window from which sunlight, Nature's paint, spilled into the room like blood, 'my streets… all of them acting as ears for me.'

'And what is it you've heard concerning us?' Nick asked, trying to keep his voice respectful.

Nick wasn't scared of Johnny Tan, but that didn't mean he wanted to provoke him. He could sense that Baggo was intimidated, scared even, of Tan's display, but Baggo hadn't been in this game – and it was just a _game_ – for as long as Nick had. The players changed, but the Game remained.

_Men grow older, but they never grow up_, Nick thought bitterly.

Nick held Tan's gaze, but only for a second. He wanted to come across as a scarecrow; meek, limp, unassuming, but with enough spine to be used by the farmer to scare off pests and yet not scare the farmer himself.

However, this scarecrow had a backbone of steel.

'Well, you chaps seem to have fallen out of obscurity and into my lap,' Tan mused. 'As the old cliché goes, a little birdie told me that you two were thinking of knocking over a jewellers…'

Nick and Baggo remained silent.

'Fellas, don't be all fucking coy with me, I haven't the patience or the time.'

'I personally don't know what you're talking about, Mr Tan,' Nick replied in an even tone. 'Saying that, it's clear - to me at least - that you wouldn't have brought us in here to meet you if you did not think that the rumours you have heard weren't credible.'

'You're a perceptive little bastard, Nicholas, I'll give you that much. So, knowing that I think that what I've 'eard is true, what assurance can you give me that what I've 'eard is in fact a load of old bollocks?'

'Could I ask where you're information comes from?'

'You could ask…'

'But why the fuck would you tell me,' Nick supplied.

Johnny Tan spread his hands as if to say, _exactly_.

Nick furrowed his brow. 'May I?' he asked, extracting a packet of smokes from his jacket.

Tan granted his permission with a wave of his hand.

Nick lit up and exhaled.

'Well, I don't really know what to tell you.'

'So you are planning something then, me old china?' Tan probed, with an almost-smile.

Nick sucked deeply on his cigarette. Twin streams of smoke issued from his nostrils. Eventually he said, 'What if we are?'

Nick didn't miss the conniving light that shone briefly and suddenly in Johnny Tan's eyes. The old man scratched his moustache nonchalantly and looked down. He wiped a mote of imagined dust from the gleaming desktop with a fat finger.

'Hm, well, theoretically, if you _were_ pulling a job, I'd ask you for the details.'

'Details?'

'The date, time, etcetera. I'd want to know who your proposed target was… what kind of financial incentive you'd be lookin' at, all that kind of jazz.'

'And why, if you don't mind me asking, Mr Tan, would I want to bring you into the picture? What do you have to offer me?' Nick levelled at the man across the desk. 'It seems to me that all you'd be doing was profiting from our,' he indicated himself and Baggo, 'hard work. Are you offering your personal services at recovering the score? Or do you have something else to bring to the table?'

Tan was silent for a moment. When he spoke his voice was ice, cracking over a dirty winter pond. 'Well, Nick,' he said 'if you go about this little venture – we'll call it that for lack of a better term – then you might find yourself in the midst of a great big pickle.'

'Pickle, Mr Tan?' Nick asked innocently.

'A great, big, fuck-off pickle, boy,' replied Johnny Tan, his salt and pepper eyebrows rising with the grim pronouncement of this inevitability. 'A pickle of the enormity and variety that will see police knocking at your door for something or other…'

'You'd go to all the trouble of framing us?' Nick took another drag of his cigarette, savouring it. 'That could almost be a compliment coming from an esteemed gentleman such as yourself, Mr Tan, but are we really worth going to all the effort of a set up?'

'No one said anything about setting up anyone,' Tan said shrugging and closing his eyes. 'I've just got some good chums in the police-force, and they are _very_ fucking efficient at their job, would you believe. Alas, sometimes they make mistakes.'

'Mistakes that make chaps like us get thrown into prison accidentally on purpose?'

Tan shrugged his expansive shoulders. He may as well have added, 'and that's that'.

Nick took a retaliatory breath, running his tongue over his teeth.

This time Johnny Tan had seemingly had enough and Nick knew it. He could see a light in the man's eyes that had not been there a moment before.

_A pitbull is still a pitbull, no matter how firmly you think he's leashed_, Nick thought. _No point baiting him past the point of no return. Plus he's obviously stubborn, stubborn enough to murder one or both of us just to prove that he was telling the truth. Never good._

'Now, before you go gettin' all argumentative on me, gentlemen,' Tan growled threateningly, 'I'd just like to warn you – because accidents do 'appen of course – of the possible consequences of trying to pull a job in this city without my blessing.'

'Is there a cock in my arse, Baggo? Because it feels very much like I'm getting fucked,' Nick said placidly.

A sharp intake of breath from Baggo made Nick turn his head.

With more stealth than Nick would have thought possible for a man of such brutish and simple appearance, Alastair had re-entered the room. Without as much as the squeak of a floorboard or a rustle of trousers he had positioned himself behind Nick and Baggo, and waited for Mr Tan to make his final point.

Now, to Nick's deep consternation, he had the muzzle of a silenced pistol pressed into the base of Baggo's skull.

'Once again, without sounding too clichéd,' Tan continued, 'we can go about things the easy way or the hard way, and I highly recommend the easy way.'

He let the threat hang in the air for a moment. Nobody spoke. The only sound was Baggo breathing, quick and shallow, through his nose.

'We'll take the easy way won't we, Nick,' Baggo said stiffly.

Nick kept quiet. His mind was going a million miles an hour, frantically searching for a way to keep Johnny Tan out of the loop whilst keeping Baggo's brains in his head. His lack of options irritated him more than anything. It was almost like being back at school again. Tan as the bully with all the teachers in his pocket, wanting half of Nick's lunch in return for safe passage across the playground, a playground that he controlled exclusively.

There were only two options that Nick could see. Walk the line that Tan had laid out for them or –

_Lie to him?_

_Bring him in on it?_

_I'm sure as shit not going to let this fat bastard have half of my money._

_Lie to him._

They weren't really options at all.

_Well, as Dad once told me, your only option is your best option_.

Nick was bought sharply out of his internal debate by the blood chilling and inimitable sound of the hammer on a handgun being cocked. The unmistakable _crick_ resonated profoundly through the stillness of the office. It was one of the those sounds that could be counted on to scare the shit out of most people without fail.

'Decision time, Nick,' Tan said.

Nick looked up at him. The fat man wasn't even attempting to hide the smugness in his eyes now. He'd backed them into a corner and he knew it.

'We'll split the take fifty-fifty, lad, you can't say fairer than that.'

Nick was puzzled.

_He only wants half? He could have taken the lot. _

Cold realisation spilled down his spine, chilling his insides.

_The greedy prick _is _going to take it all, and then he's going to kill us. Brilliant._

'Do we have a deal, Nick? Or am I going to have to call downstairs and tell one of my boys to come up here with a bucket and a mop to clean your mate's brains off my carpet.'

Tan's succulent hand moved over to the phone on his desk and hovered there like the blade of a guillotine.

Nick lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out hard.

_I've got to cut down _he noted mildly.

'Well?' said the man across the desk.

'Alright, Mr Tan, you've got yourself a fucking deal. Let me tell you what we have in mind.'

Tan sat back in his chair, a look of contented self-satisfaction engraved on his fleshy face.

The pressure on the back of Baggo's head was released, Alastair's gun was tucked back into its owner's waistband.

As Nick began to explain the plan, Tan leant forward with rapt attention, his moustache quivering excitedly on his top lip as if it wanted to escape.

Thankfully Tan was too engrossed in Nick's detailed description to notice Baggo's face as it slowly went whiter and whiter and Nick told a lie that could, potentially, kill them both.


End file.
